Patterico's Pontifications

10/19/2017

More Evidence of Collusion!

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:22 pm



The Hill:

As he prepared to collect a $500,000 payday in Moscow in 2010, Bill Clinton sought clearance from the State Department to meet with a key board director of the Russian nuclear energy firm Rosatom – which at the time needed the Obama administration’s approval for a controversial uranium deal, government records show.

Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and one of the highest-ranking government officials to serve on Rosatom’s board of supervisors, was listed on a May 14, 2010, email as one of 15 Russians the former president wanted to meet during a late June 2010 trip, the documents show.

“In the context of a possible trip to Russia at the end of June, WJC is being asked to see the business/government folks below. Would State have concerns about WJC seeing any of these folks,” Clinton Foundation foreign policy adviser Amitabh Desai wrote the State Department on May 14, 2010, using the former president’s initials and forwarding the list of names to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team.

The email went to two of Hillary Clinton’s most senior advisers, Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills.

Everything about the Clintons stinks.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

76 Responses to “More Evidence of Collusion!”

  1. A bop bopa loobop a bink bank whatever

    Patterico (115b1f)

  2. But who arranged thus shindig, renaissance bank which is awash in magnitsky cash, Btw it also was a front for the hackers in thexstate exchanges. The cfius review was shortcircuited by clapper pulling the key intelligence monitors

    narciso (d1f714)

  3. the fbi’s corrupt and skanky

    #itsaproblem

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  4. “stinks”???

    I know from what you write about Trumpelstiltskin that you can do better than that for invective.

    Fred Z (05d938)

  5. “I gotta pay our bills. And I also give a lot of it to the foundation every year.”

    Bill Clinton, May 4, 2015

    Frederick (f82baa)

  6. Prokhorov veselberg blavatnik its like a whole deck of cards

    narciso (d1f714)

  7. I’ll wager two of the three were behind the dossier

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fusion-collusion-1508455434

    narciso (d1f714)

  8. Samantha Power said someone forged her name to unmask Americans 260 times.

    Sounds like a crime to me.

    AZ Bob (f60c80)

  9. Tune in next week for another installment of those stinky rascals, Teh Clintons

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  10. #goldstarstinkypig

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  11. But Pokemon, that was when the hellmouth should have opened up and swallowed schiff and warner

    narciso (d1f714)

  12. i stand with President Trump Mr. narciso

    i stand with my head held high

    and as an aside i think it’s fun-sucking popsicles how we’re learning so much about who everybody is

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  13. And I pointed out, the lerner treatment suggests this company had much more to hide.

    narciso (d1f714)

  14. With milquetoast Jeff Sessions as AG, can we have any confidence the rule of law will guide Justice Department decisions to prosecute made members of the Obama/Clinton crime syndicate?

    If Sessions is unwilling to do his job, and so far there’s scant evidence of impending indictments, Trump should demand his resignation and nominate a replacement firmly dedicated to prosecuting crimes committed under color of government office.

    Equal enforcement of the law is the keystone in the foundation of our Republic. That foundation is crumbling before our eyes. Is Jeff Sessions the man to exterminate the vermin previously infecting the people’s house? Or, has the time come to call for a more vigorous champion?

    ropelight (bbe920)

  15. Who would you suggest, ropelight? Sessions was one of the first Trump supporters and had a background and experience that makes him able to do the job of AG. It’s not like there are a lot of choices.

    DRJ (15874d)

  16. It just shows how totally unaccountable the razorback borgias are:

    http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/20/hillary-clintons-russian-ghost-stories

    When we consider this on top of the tli/tenaz deal.

    narciso (d1f714)

  17. Razorback Borgias is an instant classic, narciso.

    DRJ (15874d)

  18. The answer to #16 is: Sheriff David Clark. Any opposition is racist.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  19. Even after this:

    After the FBI arrested 10 of the spies in June, 2010, Secretary of State Clinton worked feverishly to return the Russian agents to Moscow in a hastily arranged, lopsided deal with Putin.

    It all happened as the uranium deal was in play: An arrangement to provide Moscow’s state Rosatom nuclear agency with 20 percent of American uranium capacity, with $145,000,000 to pour into the Clinton Family Foundation and its projects.

    For the Clintons, the FBI’s biggest counterintelligence bust in history couldn’t have come at a worse time.

    The day the FBI arrested the Russian agents, on June 28, 2010, the day before the secretary of state’s husband, Bill Clinton, was to give a speech in Moscow. A Kremlin-connected investment bank, Renaissance Capital, paid the former president $500,000 for the hour-long appearance.

    The Nevertrumpers refuse to count their lucky stars.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  20. Clarke is a Trump supporter but he isn’t a lawyer. You have to be a lawyer to be Attorney General, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and chief lawyer.

    DRJ (15874d)

  21. Is there a Trump Foundation?

    [Clouds of dust arise from the spin]

    Betcha those funds would be mingled, if…he had a charitable foundation.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  22. My study of the renaissance informed my view, including what I discovered about il macchias model cor the prince, and how he shaped narratives for centuries. Isn’t it striking how quickly the Chapman ring, which inspired the upcoming red sparrow film with Jen Lawrence (a terrible casting choice Btw)

    narciso (d1f714)

  23. I guess now we know who the Obama Cabinet official in this Russian spy story was.

    PS Hoagie- I’ve been interested in this story since 2010.

    DRJ (15874d)

  24. It might be a bad choice but, to me, Lawrence doesn’t have much emotional range. That strikes me as good casting for a Russian character.

    DRJ (15874d)

  25. LISA DESJARDINS: But here’s the issue: Timing. Tax filings show he donated nothing to the foundation in recent years. Instead, most of the foundation’s funding, about $9.5 million, has come from outside donors, including Vince and Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling tycoons. Linda McMahon is now the Trump nominee to head the Small Business Administration. The couple gave $5 million in two years.

    Next, this claim from Trump: that all of his foundation money is given to charity. Again, context is critical here. Most of Trump Foundation money did go to nonprofits or charities, but philanthropy may not have been the only motivation. Public documents show foundation funds also went to help settle lawsuits against Mr. Trump, or to political allies, as The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold recently explained to the “NewsHour.”

    DAVID FAHRENTHOLD, The Washington Post: They gave to this group called And Justice For All, which is a political campaign committee helping Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who, at the time, just happened to be considering, her office was considering whether to pursue an investigation against Trump University. They, later on, after the money came in, decided not to pursue that investigation. Trump paid that money out of the Trump Foundation, which is against the law.

    LISA DESJARDINS: Finally, Trump tweeted that his foundation “never paid fees, rent, salaries or any expenses.”

    That is true. His children serve as the foundation’s board, and the foundation is run by the staff of the Trump Organization, his business.

    Now, that creates an efficient family charity, but has raised some serious questions. Charities are not supposed to directly benefit or overlap with for-profit businesses like the Trump Organization, and that’s one reason the New York state attorney general is investigating the charity.

    And all that leads us to what’s next for the Trump Foundation. The president-elect has announced he plans to close it. But, legally, he’s not allowed to do that until the New York investigation is over.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/bb/know-trumps-charitable-foundation-dont

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  26. But that Yellowcake..er..uranium thing is just….well..too much.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  27. Not if you read the book, but Francis Lawrence worked with her in hunger games,

    narciso (d1f714)

  28. “Good morning kids. The weekend’s here, and despite the classy and epic smack-down of Frederica “empty barrel” Wilson, the potentially huge story is the Uranium 1 scandal and coverup. Incredibly, it turns out that Bill Clinton lobbied his own wife who was the Secretary of State to meet with Russian nuclear officials at the time when Obama was about to approve the sale of 20% of our uranium supply to a key global rival/enemy. And almost on the same day when he was collecting a cool $500,000 fee for a speaking engagement. This is without doubt the biggest government scandal in United States history. That is, it would be if the media covered it and if Attorney General Snoozy McSnoozerson the crime dawg started handing down indictments. So here’s the Russian collusion, Mr. Mueller (*spit*). Except your mission is now obvious for all the world to see: to cover up the collusion between the last administration and Russia by trumping up charges against the current president in order to sabotage him and overthrow the 2016 election.

    And meanwhile, as we have an incredible jobs report that underscores the success PDT is having in spite of the GOP and others, two former presidents have now deigned to completely disgrace themselves in public fora. Obama I expect this from; he’s a lowlife scoundrel. But George W. Bush, silent for most of the eight years he was blood-libeled and then another eight years when the previously mentioned bastard laid waste to every American institution he could get his filthy hands on, now opens his cake-hole to trash President Trump, thinly veiled as it was. Sir, I will not address how insulting this is, but I will merely point out that it is revelatory, about your character (or lack thereof) and about who and what you represent; a globalist vision that will have America on its knees and subservient to some other power. You’re not a Marxist stooge like the jug-eared dog-eater; but you serve the same purpose. Please go away and take your entire family with you. And take the Clintons with you too. You’ve all done enough damage.”

    — J.J. Sefton

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  29. 27.But that Yellowcake..er..uranium thing is just….well..too much.

    Well…er..yes…it’s called…er… treason, comrade. But you’re doing a bang up job as Commissar of Propaganda and Fake News. The Party thanks you. You should be nominated for the Lenin Cross First Class with Black Lies Matter Cluster.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  30. Haiku loves Ace of Spades and apparently he’s on a mission to repost its content here, without links. Here is a link.

    DRJ (15874d)

  31. DRJ… Teh Conscience of PP!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  32. How about that Trump Foundation Hoagie…?cherry picker

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  33. We will discover one day like that missing Iraqi cash that ended up in sunni lebanon

    http://slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/04/wowie_zahawie.html

    narciso (d1f714)

  34. @Ben burn:How about that Trump Foundation

    Did it take money from the Russians to help them score uranium? No? Then you’re just engaging in whataboutism, and pretty transparently given how much you invested in the “Trump colluded with Russia” narrative.

    You’re hoist on your own petard here.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  35. Now-now Frederick, comrade Ben is only doing his job. As Commissar of the highly coveted position over Propaganda and Fake News, Ben has to wisely use funds from George Soros, laundered through the Clinton Foundation to use to undermine Trump and the entire non-corrupted by leftist radicals in government. It’s a tall order but all of us at Party Central believe Ben! is the man for the job*. After all it was he who convinced Hillary? to change the name of her book from Mein Kamphaign to What Happened???. A stroke of propaganda genius!

    *Ben! has proven so successful as a useful idiot he has been awarded the coveted Hillary! Exclamation Point (!).

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  36. BTW, Q! uses the Exclamation Point but in his case it is useful idiot stolen valor.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  37. I’m providing context for the local poutrage, Freddy. Am I spoiling the festive mood?

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  38. Yall seem to think I’m a Partisa like yourselves. If the Clintons are guilty of crimes let them pay. Really, you should get that carbuncle looked at.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  39. Partisan..

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  40. He was a John. Edwards supporter, have pity on him.

    Of course tenaz is a tiny piece of red queens provisioning the bear through her foundation

    narciso (d1f714)

  41. Only because the alternative was quest, narcolito.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  42. Not quest but wurst..

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  43. @Ben burn:Am I spoiling the festive mood?

    And here you betray that your motive is trolling. You really don’t know when it is in your best interest to keep quiet. Most people here don’t even see your comments, you know.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  44. Frederick..if that’s your helps put me on ignore. If providing context is trolling you’re missives are verklempt.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  45. @ben burn:If providing context is trolling

    It’s not, but nice try with the if-by-whiskey tactic. What’s trolling is this “Am I spoiling the festive mood?”

    u mad bro?

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  46. Well it DID seem you’re a party-pooper. How about some advice on putting some humor in your take-downs like
    U mad Bro?

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  47. I like this website, Haiku.

    DRJ (15874d)

  48. I like Ace sometimes, too, but I don’t use Patterico’s posts to troll him.

    DRJ (15874d)

  49. Yes, I don’t find it to be as glorious or informative as it once was, but I still enjoy much of the shared insight.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  50. You can keep your short leash, trolling has never been my intent. It’s just another perspective.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  51. Then I encourage you to share your perspective in your words. They are very descriptive and also entertaining, as you’ve shown us many times.

    DRJ (15874d)

  52. As for samantha power were supposed to take her word she didn’t unmask, lets seize all her papers, review all her emails, and everyone she could possibly have contacted this is goose for manapfort and page right?

    narciso (d1f714)

  53. JLaw also has that too-much-vodka thickness with her, if her strip-down audition was any indication.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  54. Matthews who ended as head of the soviet division, creates this tale of a for ballerina, maybe mi
    A kunis, with party connection who becomes the title character. Her boss is a disgruntled
    Kgb veterans who is a long time Company asset.

    narciso (d1f714)

  55. President Bubba and his lovely wife Shrillary have struck me as ostentatiously criminal since roughy halfway through his first term. Nothing since has altered my impression.

    C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37)

  56. re a drop of golden sun

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  57. i can’t process this

    somebody help me

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  58. Wow, Clinton got a half a million dollars, from a speech? OMG! Well gosh, it looks that’s his going rate. Sometimes he even gets more. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/apr/26/peter-schweizer/fact-checking-clinton-cash-author-claim-about-bill/
    That’s deceptive or ignorant, take your pick.

    Tillman (a95660)

  59. I hope everyone but the lefties has read Andy McCathy’s article in NRO about the Russia Uranium scandal.

    I know the lefties will avoid it and prefer non sequiturs about Trump.

    Mike K (b3dd19)

  60. A couple days ago I wrote a comment questioning whether there was less here than meets the eye, as the info I read in the Hill reporting wasn’t that eye-popping to me. I said there might be more to The Hill’s story, or there might not be more.

    I would recommend everyone who is interested read Andy McCarthys story up today at NRO. His additional facts on how the prosecution was handled and timed and the people who were involved AND helped keep info from Congress is staggering.

    My earlier view was wrong. This is a huge scandal and might unravel the entire Mueller probe. More later when I’m at my computer.

    Shipwreckedcrew (6ff3a1)

  61. Part One:

    Andy McCarthy’s article on the Uranium One deal touched on some oddities in the prosecution of a Russian named Mikerin. If you haven’t read the article, and don’t understand the relationship of the players to Russian and Uranium One, let give you a Cliff Notes Version. I probably don’t have the exact sequence of this in order, but its just an overview – corrections to the timeline are welcome.

    A company called Uranium One, based on South Africa, acquired a Canadian company owned by a big benefactor of the Clinton Foundation. The Canadian company held about 20% of the US domestic uranium reserves in land it owned. What made the Canadian company attractive was that in 2005 it had acquired – with the assistance of Bill Clinton – substantial uranium mining rights in Kazakstan. After purchasing the Canadian company, Uranium One also acquired the Kazak uranium rights. This created a huge issue in Russia, as Russia wanted control of that uranium, so Putin put the squeeze on the Kazak Gov’t, and they arrested all the folks who had approved the Kazak deal with the Canadian company, and threatened to nationalize the mines. This would have crippled the value of Uranium One, with Clinton’s Canadian friends having taken huge amounts of Uranium One stock in exchange for their company. Before too long there was a deal in place for the Russian Gov’t owned Rosatom, which controlled all nuclear energy in Russia, to purchase controlling interest in Uranium One, which would pay off the Clinton backers, secure the rights to the Kazak uranium for the Russian Govt’, AND give them control over 20% of uranium reserves in the US.

    Rosatom was not unknown to the US because going back to 1993, the US Govt had signed a deal with the Yeltsin Govt to acquire Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons, process it down to “Low Enriched Uranium” (LEU), and send it to US uranium users. After it was spent, the LEU would be sent back to Russia to be combined with HEU, until it was back to LEU, and then sent back to the US again. So this was a well-established US-Russian arrangement.

    To run this arrangement, Rosatom had a Russian subsidiary named Tenex. Tenex was the Russian company that entered into all the contract arrangements with US companies under the bilateral agreement to use Russian HEU in US industry. The deal for Rosatom to purchase Uranium One came about in 2009. But because of Uranium One’s holdings of domestic uranium rights in the US, the deal had to be approved by the Gov’t. This approval was pending in 2010, when Hillary flew off the Russia to meet with Putin and Medvedev with here famous “Reset” button. It was in this same time frame that Billy got a $500,000 fee for a 90 minute speech in Russia, sponsored by Renaissance Capital. It was also on this trip that Billy asked for State Dept. permission to meet with certain Russian energy sector officials. Renaissance Capital has been called in various reporting a Kremlin controlled firm, and was a big backer of the acquisition of Uranium One.

    The Uranium One purchase by Rosatom is eventually approved by the Obama Admin. So Tenex sets up a US subsidiary called Tenam. US Export laws would not allow Rosatom to export uranium mined in the US outside the US, so Rosatom in setting up the US subsidiary was probably anticipating business activity that would all take place in the US, and it would be easier to manage that activity with a domestic US company as a subsidiary for regulatory reasons.

    The person they put in charge with the Russian named Mikerin. Mikerim had been the US based point man for Tenex for the import/export of Russian HEU/LEU since 2001 (so far as I can tell), and he lived in Maryland. So when Tenam was established, Mikerin was made director of Tenam.

    But what the US DOJ and DOE knew already at this time – and it looks like they knew about it starting sometime in 2009 – is that Mikerin was involved in a variety of kickback and fraud schemes as part of his work with Tenex which had been ongoing for several years. In 2009, a lobbyist had approached the FBI and said he was being solicited by a new Russian client to pay a kickback in exchange for the lobbying contract they wanted to enter with him. Because if was a foreign company that was soliciting him, this was a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The FBI and DOJ authorized him to participate in the kickback scheme as a confidential informant, and he supplied them with documents, emails, and recordings that allowed DOJ to track the corrupt activities of the Mikerin and others with whom he was involved – both in the US and Russia.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  62. Part Two:

    The key here is that Mikerin was the guy Russia was going to put in charge of Tenam, which was being created as a result of the Uranium One deal. Both DOJ and DOE knew this, as they were investigating Mikerin together. And both DOJ and DOE had to sign off on the Uranium One deal before it could go forward to benefit Putin and Clinton’s benefactors.

    The FBI/DOJ/DOE let the Mikerin fraud/extortion/bribery scheme continue on into at least 2013 without moving to arrest anyone and put an end to it. The lobbyist who was a CI signed numerous contracts with either Tenex or Tenam – it’s unclear which one – for which he was directed to kickback hundreds of thousands of dollars to shell companies in various off-shore banks, or in the form of cash directly to Mikerin. Whenever he balked in anyway, Mikerin suggested to him that people with whom he was working in Russia would not react well if the lobbyist upset the arrangements that had been working so well.

    In Nov. 2014, Mikerin was indicted under seal. The charges in the indictment mirror what I’ve outlined above – they all involve the contracts entered into with the lobbyist, the kickbacks, and the threats against him if he quit cooperating. This was charged BY THE GRAND JURY as a conspiracy to interfere with commerce by extortion.

    The treasure trove of information I’ve found is in a clearinghouse run by Stanford Law School and the law firm Cromwell & Sullivan that houses materials on all reported FCPA prosecutions.

    What I found that was new, was that the Mikerin case had two companion cases with it, where the defendants were named Boris Rubizhevsky (Rubiz for short) and Daren Condrey.

    Rubiz was a US citizen with a business in New Jersey. He owned NexGen Security, with is a security consulting business having him as the only employee, and a business address the same as his residence. He was a “consultant” for Mikerin and Tenam.

    Condrey was the co-owner, along with his wife I believe, of Transport Logistics International (TLI), a Maryland company in the business of transporting hazardous materials such as uranium. TLI performed work involving Russian LEU for Tenex, under contracts entered into by Mikerin.

    On October 29, 2014, a criminal complaint was filed naming Mikerin, Condrey, Condrey’s wife, and Rubiz. This is only 2 weeks before the grand jury returns an indictment of Mikerin charging the entirely separate conspiracy involving the lobbyist.

    The criminal complaint naming Condrey and Rubiz, along with Mikerin, is pretty much the same kind of scheme as the one involving the lobbyist. But Condrey and his wife didn’t report it to the FBI, so they are guilty of a crime along with Mikerin. They paid the kickbacks in exchange for getting the contracts, they priced the cost of the kickbacks into the contracts and submitted grossly inflated invoices, and the contracts paid them nicely for their transportation services.

    The Condrey/Mikerin criminal complaint sets forth the specifics of 27 specific transfers of money as kickbacks by the Condrey to Mikerin and his Russian cohorts – starting on April 15, 2009, and ending on May 30, 2014 – more than 5 years in all. The total amount in just those specified payments was well over $1 million.

    So now the Feds had filed charges against Mikerin who is also running the Tenam business that grew out of the Uranium One deal, they knew about Mikerin way back when the Uranium One deal was pending, and that Mikerin was likely paying the kickback money to Russian government officials back in Moscow who were his confederates.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  63. Part Three:

    In Feb-Mar. 2014, Russian had moved on the Crimea, and was actively supporting Russian-backed rebels who were fighting against the newly elected gov’t in the Ukraine. The era of “Reset” with the Obama Admin. was pretty much over. So a few months later, DOJ takes down the Mikerin case because it no longer matters that it will likely expose Russian gov’t complicity in the criminal enterprise. But that doesn’t mean DOJ wants it to be very well publicized because questions are likely to be asked about why it was allowed to go on for so long after it was uncovered – and the Uranium One controversy hit the front page of the NYT in April 2015, as well as being prominently featured in the book “Clinton Cash” about the use of the Clinton Foundation to monetize Hillary Clinton’s role as Secretary of State, and have the Foundation support the Clinton family lifestyle in the manner to which they had become accustomed.

    So they needed to make the case go away quietly – without the fanfare of a trial.

    Plea offers were extended to all the defendants in the summer of 2015. It looks like the charges against Condrey’s wife were dismissed – likely in exchange for his willingness to plead guilty. The Feds now do this by way of a letter which lays out the terms of a plea offer, which is sent to the defendant’s attorney, and the defendant and his attorney sign the letter indicating their acceptance of the terms. Then a separate document which is a “Plea Agreement” is prepared and filed with the Court.

    The Plea Offer letters for each of the 3 defendants are part of the electronic file at the Stanford Clearinghouse.

    On June 15, 2015, Rubiz is given an offer to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to launder money under 18 USC Sec. 1956(h). This is a crime that has a potential maximum penalty of up to 20 years. But the length of the recommended sentence under the Sentencing Guidelines is determined mostly by the amount of money involved. Here the Gov’t agreed that it would recommend that as to Rubiz, only an amount between $70,000 and $120,000 was involved. With other sentencing variables that would apply to his case, the gov’t represented that the Adjusted Offense Level would be either 16 or 18. With no prior criminal history, Rubiz was facing an advisory guideline range of 21-33 months.

    Also on June 1, 2015, Condrey was made an offer to plead guilty to a conspiracy to violate FCPA and commit Wire Fraud. By using the general federal conspiracy statute – 18 USC Sec. 351 – they knew that Condrey would receive no more than the maximum sentence authorized under that statute, no more than 5 YEARS (60 months). Condrey had paid well over $1 million in bribes. If he was made to plead to a substantive crime under either statute he was alleged to conspire to violate, the amount of money involved would have had the biggest influence on his sentencing guidelines. With the offense involving more than $1 million, he would have had an adjusted offense level of between 30 and 38 under the guidelines. The guidelines would have recommended a sentence between 97 and 327 months, depending on factual determinations made by the judge at sentencing. By allowing Condrey to plead to a 371 conspiracy, they made it so he could get no more than 60 months. In other words, it was a sweetheart deal in order to get him to plead guilty.

    Mikerin was first named in a criminal complaint in July 2014. The allegations against him in that complaint involved his extortion of the lobbyist. That complaint sets forth 11 kickback payments made by the lobbyist, beginning Nov. 27, 2009, and the last one on Jan 23, 2012. The total of the 11 payments was $460,000. The information also lists some limited information about TLI and the kickbacks paid there too, but not with as much detail. The complaint alleges that he has violated the Interference With Interstate Commerce by Extortion (Sec. 1951) and the Money Laundering (Sec. 1956) statutes.

    As noted above, on November 11, 2014, a grand jury indictment of Mikerin was returned charging him in connection with the extortion of the lobbyist, but nothing about Condrey and TLI. But the plea agreement he ultimately enters in to has nothing to do with the lobbyist – the plea agreement all revolves around the episode involving Condrey and TLI. This was true even though a grand jury had indicted him in connection with the lobbyist extortion.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  64. Part Four:

    What Andy McCarthy wrote about is that the terms of the plea agreement – not its subject matter – violated DOJ policy. The only way that plea agreement got approved was with the written authorization of the US Attorney in Maryland where the case was filed, and the Assistant Attorney General of the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division of DOJ, which also prosecuted the case.

    DOJ Policy for the entire 23 years I was an AUSA was that you could only offer a plea agreement to the most serious charge that could readily be proven at trial given evidentiary issues in the case. That meant that if you wanted to plead someone out to a lesser offense than the one charged in the indictment, you had to set forth in writing problems with the evidence on the more serious charge which could cause you to lose the case if you went to trial on that more serious charge. If your supervisor and the US Attorney agreed, then you were authorized to make a plea offer to a lesser charge.

    As McCarthy noted, Mikerin’s plea offer was for him to plead guilty to conspiracy to launder money, but it was to be charged under the general criminal conspiracy statute, Sec. 371, rather than the more serious 1956(h) money laundering conspiracy statute. The biggest benefit to the offer to them was that Mikerin would know that he would be sentenced to no more than 5 years, which was the maximum under the 371 statute, rather than the potential 20 years that he could get under the money laundering statute.

    The problem is that allowing the plea to the less serious charge COULD NOT be justified on evidentiary grounds. The evidence to prove a conspiracy to launder money under Sec. 371 is the SAME as to prove a conspiracy to launder money under Sec. 1956(h). The same case presented to a jury would result in a conviction under either statute. So, justifying a plea to the statute with the shorter maximum term had to be made on grounds other than the evidence.

    And, whatever that justification was, it had to be signed off in writing by the US Attorney and Assistant AG of the Fraud Section.

    So, in August 2015, who were those two people?

    Ron Rosenstein, the current Dep. Attorney General who appointed Robert Mueller to investigate the Russian/Trump Campaign collusion allegations was the US Attorney for Maryland.

    Andrew Weissman was the Assistant Attorney General for the Fraud Section. Weissman was previously Mueller’s General Counsel at the FBI when Mueller was Director, and Weissman is now a senior member of Mueller’s Russia investigation team.

    One other note about Mikerin’s prosecution.

    Rubiz was represented by an attorney named Eugene Gorokov, of a small 2 man law firm in Washington DC, which promotes that its attorneys speak fluent Russian.

    Condrey was represented by an attorney named Robert Bonsib, who looks like a highly regarded white collar criminal defense attorney with 40 years experience, and a small firm of only 6 attorneys in suburban Maryland.

    Mikerin was represented by William B. Jacobson (NOT Legal Insurrection’s author of the same name), and Jonathan Lopez, of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, Wash. DC.

    Jacobsen was for 2 years the head of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement unit in the Fraud Section of DOJ, and was a Trial Attorney in the Fraud Section for 11 years before that.

    Lopez was also an 11 year veteran of the Fraud Section, and had been picked by Andrew Weissman to be part of Weissman’s Enron Task Force in 2005. At one point he was the Dep. Chief of the Money Laundering and Bank Integrity unit of the Fraud Section of DOJ.

    Those two are guys who get in the $1000 an hour range to defend cases like this.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  65. Part Five:

    McCarthy’s article raises huge questions about why DOJ and DOE didn’t inform any of the committees needing to approve the Uranium One deal – including committees within DOJ and DOE – about the corruption and racketeering activity of Mikerin, the guy Russia was going to have in charge of the US subsidiary of the Russian company making the acquisition. Nor was anyone from Congress made aware of the investigation.

    The Director of the FBI was Mueller. I would be willing to bet $100 that this was deemed a “Tier I” investigation inside the FBI because of the target and the connection to Rosatom and the Russian Gov’t. That means Mueller would have been briefed on the investigation every 30 days. No way he can claim ignorance of it.

    Rosenstein signed off on the plea deal as did Weissman. Did they do so in order to make the case go away with the least possible amount of attention?? If so, what were they trying to avoid? Remember, this is only a few months before the start of the 2016 election primary season, and at that point Hillary Clinton was widely regarded to be the presumptive Dem nominee, although Bernie Sander’s momentum was building. No one took Donald Trump seriously until late in the fall of 2015, and maybe not even until the early primaries in 2016. Weissman has been a contributor to Clinton and other Dem politicians. Rosenstein was nominated by Obama, though his history in DOJ has been pretty non-partisan. But Maryland is an overwhelmingly democrat state.

    Not letting the agencies passing judgment on the Uranium One acquisition know about the issues with Mikerin IMO is a dereliction of duty. They absolutely knew and make a deliberate decision to disclose what they knew.

    If I were Sessions and Trump, I would publicly announce that Rosenstein and Weissman’s positions in DOJ are both under review, and they are both suspended with pay for now – solely as a result of their actions in connection with the Mikerin case which warrants internal review. Rosenstein is the Dep. AG, and Weissman was the AAG of the Fraud Unit before joining Mueller. But while on Mueller’s staff he’s considered a DOJ attorney, and is subject to DOJ discipline for misconduct. Suspending him from DOJ would take him off Mueller’s task force.

    Sessions should also initiate an investigation of Mueller’s role in the way the Mikerin investigation was handled, and should suggest that Mueller need to determine whether Mueller can continue on in his current capacity given the questions and an open investigation by OIG and OPR. If Mueller won’t step aside, then DOJ should suspend the budget for his investigation until the probe of his conduct is complete.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  66. Forgot to say “That was the end”.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  67. Thanks shipwrecked, this is where I became very curious when I discovered the Russian side was headed by the son of their nuclear foynder industry, mankaure, and on the amweucan sudexwas a GMT south African diplomat specializing in nuclear matters, he retired I. 2009, passed on in 2011, then his computer was wiped.

    narciso (d1f714)

  68. Thank you, shipwreckedcrew.

    “Hey kid you gotta know the righta peoples. You know the righta peoples is everything coming uppa roses.” — Vito Cool Lips Chericola, Chicago’s Mafia Boss (fictional)

    nk (dbc370)

  69. American counterpart was, the late rod fisk

    narciso (d1f714)

  70. He was at the t of the pyramid:
    tliusa.com/index.php/about/news/67-mr-rod-fisk

    narciso (d1f714)

  71. enter corrupt FBI turdboy James Comey and his illegal leaks what created a pretext for sleazy Attorney General Rosenstein to appoint corrupt and criminally culpable FBI turdboy Robert Mueller as special counsel

    Jeffy Sessions better sit down and have a nice herbal tea this must be quite startling for the old girl

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  72. Wow. You wouldn’t think they made these decisions on their own, would ‘ya…

    crazy (d99a88)


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